A small waist makes you tire easily.

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

It's frightening to wake up one morning and discover that while you were asleep you went out of style.

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.

One son appears in stereo - a transistor in one ear and the phone in the other.

There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo.

A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend - and he's a priest.